


How To Breathe

by theappleppielifestyle



Category: The Avengers
Genre: Angst, M/M, steve/tony - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 18:12:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let's go home," Steve says, and he doesn't realize what he's said until a few minutes later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Breathe

Tony's childhood, no matter what the media says, is actually kind of shit.

He gets lost in his own house a few times before he turns 6, in the jungle of unused guest rooms and lounges and bedrooms that they don't need, don't care about.

His mother is- distant. She stares off into space with a glass in her hand and smiles vaguely at him once every few days.

Which, hell, is better than what his father does, with his empty bottles and loud shouting and his sooty hands that leave marks on Tony's cheek when he misbehaves.

-

Peggy tells him stories about a superhero from years ago, way back in the war. She grins and doesn't push him off when he climbs into her lap, doesn't slap him when he asks for another story so he can sleep.

She dies the day before his eight birthday, and Tony cries and Howard hits him hard enough to make him spin backwards.

-  
The kids at school are learning long division and he's learning advanced calculus. 

They push him, and he does something stupid- makes something blow up, whatever, easy, but they laugh and he does it again and they laugh and it's easy.

-

He graduates at 15.

Graduates _college_ at 15, which would get most kids at least a pat on the back, but his father tells him to sit up straighter and his mother nods with glassy eyes.

He doesn't say anything, tries not to care, clenches the bottle in his hand and drinks until he can't feel anything.

-

He's sad. He's unwaveringly and stupidly sad and he learns to hide it.

-

Rhodey comes with him to parties and makes sure he doesn't die from alcohol poisoning. He sticks around.

He leaves when Tony tells him to, leaves when he's fed up with him, which is normal, he's used to it.

He comes back, though.

Which, hey, is a first.

-

He gets outed at 18 years old when someone snaps a picture of him making out with his dad's very male assistant.

Neither of his parents say anything.

Tony uses concealer on the bruises.

-

He gets diagnosed with chronic depression, and the doctor is bribed with an obscene amount of money to shut up about it.

-

"Smile for the camera," Obie says, and his hand feels like it's burning a hole into the small of his back where it's touching him.

Tony grits his teeth and spreads his lips and the lights are flashing, and his eyes hurt and his hands are shaking and he's tired and he's used to it.

This is his first time with the paparazzi since his parents died two years ago.

"Tony will be taking over the company," Obie says with that huge plastic smile.

Smile for the camera.

Smile, Tony.

-

Pepper Potts comes into his life like a godsend. 

She puts up with his shit, smiles when she shouldn't, and Tony considers sleeping with her for the first few months before the months stretch into years and then a decade and she's still here, so why fuck it up?

She shoves her hair back into its bun. "-and the Japanese ambassador will be here at noon, which means you have to be there _at noon_ and not four o'clock like you did last time. Will that be all, Mister Stark?"

"Yes, Miss Potts," Tony says, and they go around and around and around.

-

Honestly, he doesn't remember most of his twenties and half of his thirties.

They pass in a blur of thighs and breasts and dicks and bad liquor, of Pepper bailing him out of a foreign jail and Obie with the hand on his back and Rhodey rolling his eyes at him.

-

Yinsen saves his life in more ways than one.

"That's right," he says as Tony notices the camera in the corner. "Smile."

Smile for the camera, Tony.

-

Yinsen, of course, dies with his hands clutching at Tony.

"Don't waste it," he chokes. "Don't waste your life."

Tony nods and says, "Sorry," and he means it, god, he means it, he wishes like hell that he could switch places, but it's not the time and they're not done yet and they're all coming for him with their guns and Tony needs to keep fighting, like he's been doing for a while now.

-

Tony's breath catches as Obie pulls the arc reactor out of his chest, blue and bright and Tony hates it, hates Obie, hates that he's been stabbed in the back more times than he can count, hates this life, hates his father, hates his scars, hates the cameras and the fake smiles and that no-one notices, no-one gives a shit, that he's gotten so good at faking being okay and he _hates_ it-

-

Steve's mother dies when he's 17, two months before he graduates. 

Her mouth is sagging as she tries to tell him something, but Steve just smiles through bleary eyes as her grip goes limp.

"Steve," Bucky says, and then stops because they're both young and dumb and neither of them know what to say.

Steve doesn't break down until his knees hit the floor of his old apartment.

-

He gets a reckless streak after that- picking fights that he won't win, that he knows he won't win, because he's ninety pounds and six-foot nothing and he can't throw a punch for shit. He gets used to washing blood down the sink when he brushes his teeth.

He tries to enlist the day after war is declared. There is a long line, and he gets laughed out of the office.

"I'm saving your life, kid," the guy says, looking at Steve with concern, like he's going to fall over from breathing too hard.

He tries again one, two, three, four, five times- Bucky shows up just as he's getting the crap kicked out of him, and literally kicks the guy's ass out of the alley.

It takes a while for Steve to realise that he's in uniform.

"107th," Bucky says, with a half-proud smile. "I'm shipping out tomorrow."

-

When Abraham Erskine first comes in, Steve thinks he's going to get arrested for lying on his enlistment forms, but-

"I can give you one chance," Erskine says. "And only one."

Three minutes later, Steve rubs his thumb over the raised stamp on his acceptance form.

-

And then there's Peggy- Peggy, whose left hook is the best he's ever seen, who doesn't take shit from everyone, who he's actually kind of freaked out by until she looks at him with that soft smile.

-

He trips over his own feet eight times in the first five hours, and bangs his head into the top of a door frame before he goes to bed, because this body is huge and new and weird.

This, of course, is after he had clung onto the roof of a moving car and had gotten his picture in the paper- he had run six blocks, and he's not even winded at the end of it.

He goes for runs in his spare time, just because he can.

-

He keeps drawing that damn monkey on a bicycle, writes letters to his mother and then burns them. Writes letters to Bucky and wonders wherte the hell he is.

He perfects his stage-smile, and 'The Star Spangled Man' plays on a loop in his head as he goes to sleep.

-

There's a train.

It's freezing.

Bucky holds out his hand, and he's reaching, and the bar he's holding onto gives out and his mouth opens in a scream that the wind catches.

Steve wakes up, and the pillow is wet under his cheek.

-

"I'm just a kid from Brooklyn," he says, and he means it, everything that has happened to him is just random chance that he's not even sure is worth it anymore.

He gets a punch in the face, a split lip, and that's more like it, he's dealt like this before in dirty alleys and behind Diners.

This, he can handle.

-

Peggy is crying over the radio, and her picture is steadfast and beautiful and shaking.

The ground rushes up with icy jaws.

He closes his eyes.

-

He's not sure where he is. There's a sense of treading water, of drowning, and his eyes are still closed.

It's only been a few seconds.

It's only been a few seconds and he wakes up and a kid in his old neighbourhood has died of old age.

-

Stark walks in and Steve opens his mouth to say _Howard_ but stops himself just in time.

-

"Genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist," Stark says, and Steve watches the easy line of his shoulders and the stupid smirk.

-

A month passes, and they manage to work together, and it's fine.

The rest of the Avengers he gets along with- he and Bruce sometimes talk over coffee, he spars with Natasha, watches TV with Coulson and Clint and hell, everyone gets along with Thor.

Tony, however, keeps making snide comments about his suit and that he's from the 40s and pretty much everything about Steve and honestly, he really pisses Steve off most of the time, except when he's flying and Steve's barking out orders and Tony takes a hit that's meant for Clint, and it's stupid but Steve stays by his bed until he wakes up.

-

"Can't sleep?" Tony asks, and Steve looks at him over his coffee.

"Mmm," Steve says non-commitedly, and they make eye contact for a few seconds so they both know that it's fuck-all about not being able to sleep and more about not wanting to sleep, due to waking up screaming every half hour.

Tony is quiet for a few seconds before saying, "PTSD unquestionably sucks ass," and Steve huffs out a laugh and it's nice, sort of.

-

Another nine months pass, and Steve's getting used to signing '2012' at the end of his statements, to Tony's insomnia, to Clint's ineffable desire to go to the zoo, to Bruce randomly hulking out, to Coulson being around 24/7, to Thor's booming yell at inappropriate times, to Natasha sometimes having an expression before she hastily covers it up.

-

"Ow," Clint mutters.

"Stop poking it," Natasha snaps, batting his hand away.

Clint sticks his tongue out at her and stubbornly pokes his bruise again.

"Come on," Tony says. "Don't be a dick. We're going to have to bandage all of that."

"Well, I hope you guys have fun," Clint says, still poking at his bruise.

"Fuck you," Tony says, slinging his faceplate up.

Thor starts saying, "I still do not understand your human's customs of cursing-"

"Shut up, all of you," Bruce says. "Cap?"

"Let's go home," Steve says, and he doesn't realize what he's said until a few minutes later.

-

Steve kisses Tony on a Friday.

Tony is speechless for at least four seconds, which Steve considers as a personal achievement.

"If you say you slipped and fell on my mouth," Tony says finally, "I swear to god-"

Steve grins and kisses him again.


End file.
